Home & School Meeting Minutes
Planning Meeting
04/07/2016
Attendees: Mr. Povilaitis, Mrs. Grabner , Mrs. Martinez, Nancy Bergey, Lori Ann Spallina, April Voeks,
Madelyne Olmo, Ericka Makaron, Meghan Hier, Randi Halstead, Heather Jones, Ashley Scovronski, Annie
McCourt – Makaron, April Welsh, Arielle Serrano, Alicia Flannery, Gina Makara, Audrey Bishop, Jennifer
Blake, Luis Zumba, Maggie DelZotto
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Nancy opened the meeting asking that everyone review the minutes from last week
Meghan gave the Treasurer’s report
o Some points of interest were super successful
 $483 ice cream night
 Tied in with a great Science night
o Field trips are starting – we’re starting to pay for the field trip
 1st Grade is on there for The Philadelphia Zoo
 That’s what we’ve paid so far
o Any Questions?
 No Questions were asked
o Motion made to approve Treasurer’s report
 (Nancy)
 Motion Seconded (Ericka)
 Motion Approved
Mrs. Martinez gave the Teacher’s report
o Report was given of what is going in with the students from Kindergarten through 6th grade
Olympic day - Questions Asked / Suggestions Given
o Some suggestions were given about whether we should purchase white shirts for everyone
and places we can do that
o Price is approx. $1200 for everyone in the school
o White t-shirts? People can pick a day to tie-dye the shirts outside
 Have a day after school or a weekend day and have a tie-dye event where they can
come and tie-dye here outside.
 What if kids can’t come to tie dye?
 Can we have them decorate it on their own or look at the cost of them
wearing color shirts and getting 2 color shirts?
 Or just do plain t-shirts and they can do that on their own and we save
$1500
 White T-Shirts to do tie Dye could be purchased through AC Moore
o Pinnies
 We talked about getting them embroidered and reused every year and we had a
parent offer to buy until we found out it’s between $1500 and $2000 to get
personalized.
 We had to go back to the drawing board and put it on hold
 We were spending a lot of money in previous years
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T-Shirts for Olympic Day (unless we do pinnies) should be everybody on their own
Color me awesome, etc… that should be where we spend since that’s our huge event and
our money is better spent on that
 Maybe we work up to pinnies and set money aside
 Maybe we can have the kids decorate when they have art class?
 We can’t make that decision, because we would be taking time away from
what the art teacher is teaching them and what her curriculum time is
o It was mentioned by a parent that they would rather not be given another t-shirt. Their kids
are 2 different sizes and they are always having to switch
 2 other parents agreed with that statement as well
 They want to save money and spend this on something else in the future, trips,
something else, etc…
o If we are going to dress the kids in a specific color, can they please tell us more than a day
ahead of time?
 Mr. Povilaitis mentioned that he’s going to keep track of it and make note to get it
out sooner
o Meghan explained what a pinnie is for several parents who asked
Calendar
o We are going to go over the calendar for next year
o Some of the items are already pre-filled from a preliminary meeting
o September
 9/6/16 Deadline to return Home Room Parent Packet
 9/8/16 - Home Room Parent meeting and H & S Meeting / 6:30 PM
 9/15/16 – Middle School Back to school night
 9/22/16 - Our back to school night
 Questions Asked / Suggestions Given:
 Do we have a way of giving us more time to ask questions at Back to School
night?
o Mr. Povilaitis mentioned that the leadership core team can discuss
the possibility of extending the night the next time they meet
 Could you split the school up to say maybe this week we’ll do K – 3 and then
next Tuesday we’ll do 4th through 6th, so that parents who have 3 kids for
example might have more help with the time? It’s an extra night but you
don’t have to extend it and make it an extra long night
 Maybe if the parents have specific questions that are very important to
them, if you have a questionnaire a week or day before and the questions
are given to the teachers, the teacher can address it that night, about lunch,
recess, etc… especially in the earlier grades
 Mr. Povilaitis mentioned that one of the problems with back to school night
is the district sets that up and so we’ve already selected the dates
 The purpose of Back to School night is getting the info. about curriculums
and expectations out there
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You’re always welcome to e-mail the teachers to ask them specific
questions about your children. E-mail is a good option and probably a little
bit easier to do that way
o That happens every year and parents are lining up to ask the
teachers the questions anyway. We can talk to the teachers about
maybe communicating out if you have specific questions about the
curriculum, e-mail me
 Mr. Povilaitis explained that for new parents that have questions there are
different events such as:
o Kindergarten
 Spring - orientation day
 Fall -new hire orientation which is the 1st day when you
come in to meet w the Kindergarten teacher.
 Then there is Back to School night which is more about
presenting the info. about curriculums
th
 In terms of 5 and 6th grade, now that the children are rotating classes for
different subjects do you just meet with the Home Room parents for Back to
School night or all parents?
o Typically with departmentalized grade levels they do it as a group or
like a team. I know it’s brand new for them.
 Last year we did kid stuff books on the youngest student’s desks. That’s
better than sending them home. You can write a check right there. Is that
still good for this year?
o Yes
 Did we see a difference in missing books?
o No, there were more missing books.
 09/30/2015 - Early Dismissal – Color me awesome pep rally
October
 10/1/16 - Color me Awesome / 10AM – 1PM
 We did decrease our time, last year it seemed like after the teacher run was
finished everyone kind of scooted out
 10/4/16 - Home & School meeting / 6:30PM (First Tuesday Meeting)
 10/8/16 – Color Me Awesome Rain Date
 10/28/16 - Halloween Dance / 6:30PM – 8:30PM
November
 11/3/16 - H & S Meeting
 11/7/16 & 11/8/16 – Parent/Teach Conference
 11/17/16 – Book Fair / Literacy Night / 6:30 – 8:30
 11/18/16 - Book Fair
 11/22/16 - Vinny’s Dine Around
 23rd – 25th - Thanksgiving Break
 Questions Asked / Suggestions Given:
 We need Volunteers
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Mommy Market – We are considering taking it off the Calendar. It’s getting
harder to fill with sellers. We don’t want to do it with only 10 sellers.
o What about combining with someone else like Walton Farm? They
welcome outside vendors…
 Is it possible to combine? Meghan will find out more about
it
o As of right now Meghan is doing everything on her own and needs
help.
o Moms from here could be advertised to go and sell over there and
vice versa?
 The majority of people that come here are already from
other areas – Warrington, Sellersville, etc…
o We took it off for next fall and we’re on the fence about spring of
next year
o What about opening for outside vendors?
 A lot of people were complaining because they didn’t make
that much.
o Is there something we can do to get people to come in? Every
market that we have is dwindling
 Now they’re 15. They were 10. We bumped it up because
we had fewer sellers coming in.
o Are you making enough for it to be worth the amount of work?
 If we sell out then it’s definitely worth it.
 One year we had 63 spaces sold.
o We were one of the first schools to do it but now all of the other
schools are doing it so that takes away from it as well.
December
 Questions Asked / Suggestions Given:
 Can it be done without the vendors?
o The focus was a lot on the kids and the vendor’s didn’t make a lot of
money. There also wasn’t a lot of space.
o Parent’s mentioned the price of some of the vendors may have
been a deterrent for other parents as many of them already had
their shopping done.
o Lori explained that last year she and Meghan already had money
from the vendors to buy things for the kids. If we do it now without
the vendors, we have to find the money to buy things for the kids
unless we team up with AM Kulp again.
 Parent’s suggested - what if you do a bake sale?
o Or just something to incorporate where you don’t have so many
people crowding the halls,
o Free wrapping, etc…
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One other thing to do either we can do a bake sale or we get
together with some kind of company that makes food for the
holiday.
 It was mentioned that there were children who couldn’t attend the Holiday
Fair last year because they were also visiting Lansdale for the tree lighting
and to support Little Miss Lansdale
o It was explained that we put our dates in then sometimes they have
to be revised once all schools put their dates in so we make sure
there are no conflicts…
o We would have to pull everybody’s calendar and work around that.
Unfortunately we have to do what works best for Oak Park and
North Penn School District.
o It was also explained that our calendar is done ahead of time,
because of all of the schools. The deadline is 4/20/16, so Doug’s
secretary starts around 4/8/16 on a draft calendar that you get
sometime in August and then we ask for clarification on different
events, etc… and different things are finalized.
 Do we want to keep it on the Calendar?
o We raised about $2200 with the vendors but without that what will
we make?
o The vendors were about $25 for each space. For $25 they’re
coming in to advertise their business because it’s worth it
 Maybe do it as a secret Santa shop fair another night
 What about vendors that are sending services like a chiropractor come in,
massage therapist – sell gift certificates. They can come in it’s just $25 a
table
 We have a whole list of people front and back (vendors) that are interested
in coming back again next year for another one
o $650 – for 26 vendors at $25 each
 12/3/16 – Vendor Fair on the 3rd – taking the kids event off of the calendar and just
give out flyers
 12/16/16 - Jumpin Jacks – offsite event / 6 – 8 PM
January
 1/5/17 – Home & School Meeting
 Roller Skating is not yet back on the calendar – we don’t have a date do we want to
do it again?
 Offsite Event can be put on the calendar – we can’t ever put where it is if it’s
offsite
 1/20/17 – Offsite Activity Night
February
 2/7/17 – Home & School Meeting / Tuesday 6:30PM
 2/24/17 - Dinner Night?
 2 ways of doing it.
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Cook off site and bring it here? Someone from kitchen staff has to
be here, you have to pay them to use the kitchen stuff
Or do it home and make runs back and forth. We still have to have
someone here from the kitchen but it’s definitely much easier to do
it here.
 When we did it in the past we could use the kitchen.
If we do it on the 10th, it could be something that the children bring
their parents out for.
You signed up for 2 shifts for eating. Whoever ate first, did activity
than would swap.
Whoever paid for dinner, the activity was free.
The cost was not astronomical; we also had raffle baskets out there.
The cafeteria could be decorated to be like an Italian restaurant.
We were thinking of doing free bingo.
 H & S would buy inexpensive gifts and bring the kids in to
have fun for this.
 We could do this on the 24th as a bingo and dinner event.
 The spaghetti would make us money but the bingo we can’t
charge for because it’s considered gambling.
We need more people to help out with these events. It’s always the
same people doing the same events every year.
Is there a way to get other people to be that blunt and say we’re
going to have to cancel if you don’t do it so that they can see it?
Maggie Delzotto & Heather Jones’ Husband volunteered (cooking)
Arielle wants to volunteer to take over an event
March
 3/2/17 - Ice-Cream Social Night
 Heather and Gina volunteered
 3/9/17 - Home and School Meeting / 6:30 PM
 3/30/17 - Principal Story hour / Metropolitan Dine Around
April
 4/4/17 - Home and School Meeting 6:00 / Tuesday
 Questions Asked / Suggestions Given:
 $1500 purchased in oak park individuals at Barnes N Nobles and we get
15% back
 What about twice upon a time? Literacy Night – The kids can dress up as
their fav. Characters and then go to literacy night that night.
 Not much on here in April because of PSSAs
 Lip Sync is in April but the teachers decide that so we don’t have a date for
that (one of the Fridays)
o Do we ever videotape the lip sync?
 Ericka suggested we go to NPTV (Kelly Rice asked Ericka prior and Arielle asked
during today’s meeting)
 4/28/17 - Family Dance
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May
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June
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5/4/17 - Home and School meeting / 6:30PM
Questions Asked / Suggestions Given:
 Mommy Market – gently used clothing and items No Professional vendors
 Massage Therapist? Keep in mind for Holiday Hair
5/5/17 - Muffin for Mom / 8:15AM – 9AM
 Combining Mom and Dad’s and doing them both the same day?
o Having H & S Meeting during the events?
o We’re not able to combine then as some parents may not both be
able to come out the same day and the children want that individual
time with each parent
5/5/17 - Book Fair / 9:15AM – 4:30PM
5/11/17 - Cultural Celebration
Darren Smith sent Ericka an e-mail that he will always do one dance for free. We
always have one that we can count on him as long as he doesn’t have a wedding or
something like that
5/23/16 - Dine Around at Vinny’s
5/26/17 – Olympic Day
6/3/17 Donuts for Dad / 8:15 AM – 9AM
6/8/17 - Last day of school